Wednesday, May 12, 2021

What I’m Watching: Pose

Pose: Season 3, Episode 3 “The Trunk” (B+)

While I wouldn’t say that Elektra hiding a dead man’s body in a trunk in her closet is one of my favorite plotlines on this show, it actually served a very effective purpose here in an entirely Elektra-centric episode. I don’t think that Dominique Jackson’s performance is fully appreciated for its tremendous quality, and she was absolutely excellent in this hour. Casting Noma Dumezweni from “The Undoing” and “Made for Love” as her mother was a stroke of genius, and their scenes together were particularly formidable. Flashbacks aren’t something we often get on this show, and it was fun to see the characters at earlier point in their lives, when Blanca still deferred entirely to her mother and when Angel, Cubby, and Lemar were just coming in off the street for their first experience of being taken care of by someone who truly saw them. It’s good to see that, years later, they all want to do something to repay Elektra’s kindness, which wasn’t an easy ask given the strong odor of the dead body that compelled Christopher to ask plenty of questions and ultimately help out both in bailing Elektra out and with disposing of the body. The ball scene was especially moving in a way that hasn’t felt quite so true for a number of episodes, and the sheer excitement on Pray’s face as he announced each of them was infectious. That’s one of this show’s signature moves, and for those sequences to still feel so captivating and fabulous is a testament to this show’s enduring quality.

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